24+5

Have spent my first week back at school this week, but have had a fairly easy week with not much teaching to do so that has eased me in gently! Everyone's looking after me too which is sweet :-)

The first couple of days back at school were quite tiring with all the unpacking we had to do to set the school back up but there was alot that I couldn't do so I felt a bit useless! 

On Thursday morning, Robin and I attended our first antenatal class (just the free NHS one) and it was OK but not much was covered, only signs of labour, what to do and pain relief really. Lots of people there were having their babies in the birthing centre and hoping for water births but obviously I can't do that as have to be in hospital :-(. To be honest, although the birthing centre is really lovely, I think I would feel better about being in a hospital anyway, just in case and there's no guarantee there will be a pool available so it's best not to get hopes up anyway. I'm sure in the future everyone will have a pool available but I think it's still quite a new thing.

I was a bit nervous about having an epidural but having heard and read more about it, I feel a bit better about it now and realise that it is a good idea for me to have it so I am prepared for any eventuality. I don't think there is much point in having a 'birth plan' written really though as I think there is so much unpredictability with a twin birth that I will just have to go with the flow. I'd rather that than have a strict expectation of anything because it's more than likely it wouldn't happen anyway.

Here's my 'mental' birth plan...1) Take paracetamol at first sign of contractions. 2) Get in a warm bath. 3) Call hospital. 4) Take lots of snacks, comfy clothes/pyjamas, friends DVDs and laptop in preparation for what could be a long, boring, painful, exciting, scary labour/stay in hospital. 5) Have entenox & epidural when appropriate. 6) *Soon after, have two beautiful babies, hopefully the way nature intended! 7) Treasure our gorgeous miracles :-) (oh and have a bath, call friends & family, take millions of photos etc etc etc!)

NHS says the following things should be covered in antenatal...

The kinds of topics covered by antenatal classes are:

• health in pregnancy, including a healthy diet
• exercises to keep you fit and active during pregnancy
• what happens during labour and birth
• coping with labour and information about different types of pain relief
• how to help yourself during labour and birth  
• relaxation techniques
• information about different kinds of birth and interventions, such as ventouse or forceps delivery
• caring for your baby, including feeding
• your health after the birth
• "refresher classes" for those who've already had a baby
• emotions and feelings during pregnancy, birth and after

It also says NCT run classes but they may charge for them (Yes, £151!) TAMBA does a one day twins class too but that's £139 aswell. Thanks but no thanks! So I'm probably not going to be getting as much info as paid classes but people have been having babies for millions of years without all this wishy washy practicing, education session malarky and I think I will pick lots of advice from other mums (especially twin ones) and from our own mums about stuff. Half the time the advice is obvious and the other half it's common sense/a quick youtube video/chat with another mum about! If you've got the money to spend and want to meet other new mums then maybe it's worth it but I just can't justify the expense when everything is costing us double!

Anyway, next week is all about feeding and we have to take a teddy or doll...must find two to take!

In other news, I've had no right thigh pain for 3 whole days now! Yay! The midwife had a little feel of my tummy on Friday and she thought they were both presenting breech so if that means that onion has shifted off my leg nerve, I'm happy with breech for now as she said there's plenty of time for onion to get back to head down for the birth. I'm measuring 30 weeks now...starting to feel it too! I dread to think how huge I will be in 10 weeks! It really doesn't sound long at all when I say that now does it! They were both quite quiet today so I popped the doppler on to check they were OK and the hbs were pretty parallel and quite high so I reckon she might have been right about them being head up side by side now.

I had to book in for my gestational diabetes test whilst at the docs so that's another morning to take off work. They will check my CBC to look at my platelets and iron levels too so am hoping the platelets aren't down further and that will put my mind at ease about bleeding to death etc. They asked me if I wanted to book the flu shot while I was there so I said why not...and maybe I should get the whooping cough while I was at it so I think the next few weeks and beyond I will feel like a bit of a human pin cushion! Oh well...it will be so worth it when I get my little munchkins! I can't wait...can you tell I'm excited!?!

I nearly got stung on the head today by a wasp again whilst I was in mothercare...what is it about me and wasps?! Luckily, I escaped but I was quite shaken up by the whole thing!

I'm wondering when I should ask people if they want to start putting in their sweepstake votes? Maybe wait a few more weeks. I really have no idea what they are...probably swaying towards thinking Onion is a girl and Sage is a boy but really have no clue! Also I have absolutely no preference for either gender combination so I'm not hoping for any specific flavours of babies, just happy and healthy ones :-)

Here's a couple of little pictures I took of my belly today...it's really stretching out now! Also check out this clip on youtube...it's so funny! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JmA2ClUvUY